At a 1996 cocktail party inside the museum, I told Art Garfunkel how beautiful his song "For Emily Whenever I May Find Her" was.

At the Costume Institute Ball I attended (the cocktails portion), in 2007, I shook hands with Cate Blanchett, introduced myself to Rupert and Wendi Murdoch, enjoyed a quick chat with Juliette Lewis and was too shy to buttonhole Lindsay Lohan. But I was ignorant about all the founders and benefactors immortalized on the grand staircase walls.

Then I read Rogues' Gallery: The Secret Story of the Lust, Lies, Greed, and Betrayals that Made The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which author Michael Gross spent three years researching without any official help from the Met. From the beginning, the powers-that-be forbade any staffers from talking to him.

"The only kind of books we find even vaguely palatable are those we control," Harold Holzer from "external affairs" told Mr. Gross. "You are laboring under a misimpression," the director at the time, Philippe de Montebello, intoned, with his vaguely comical mid-Atlantic accent. "The museum has no secrets."  

"They screamed and cursed and hung up on me and circled the wagons," Mr. Gross said recently. "It was a demoralizing experience, bloody painful and soul-destroying. I drove myself and others around me crazy."

The day Rogues' Gallery was published, in May 2009, Mr. Gross was in good spirits, in spite of an ongoing effort to kill his book. Three weeks earlier, Robert Silvers-the English-accented gent from Rockville Centre who's been editor of The New York Review of Books since like 1863-asked Random House for five galley copies, supposedly for reviewing purposes. Mr. Silvers also wished to secure at least one for the Met's vice chairman, Annette de la Renta, so she could read the 110-page chapter ("Arrivistes") about her and her mother, Jane Engelhard, whom Mr. Gross considers one of the most fascinating women of the 20th century and great American characters of all time.

Ms. de la Renta was less enthused. Soon, a 17-page letter from her lawyer at Cravath, Swaine & Moore arrived at Random House. Citing "gratuitous and false character assassination" and "absolute disregard for the truth," among other charges, the lawyer warned that if the book wasn't removed from circulation and corrected, "[y]ou will act at your peril."

There was a party for Rogues' Gallery at Georgette Mosbacher's duplex overlooking the Met. In his little speech, Mr. Gross (whose healthy ego makes him seem less petite) made a crack about how museum cameras were surely looking into the living room, its spies taking down names.

"So you're all on the list now!" he said to a media and society clusterfuck that included Jay McInerney and Anne Hearst, Jonathan and Somers Farkas, Lisa and Julian Niccolini, Lloyd Grove and Laurie Dhue, Hunt Slonem and Ghislaine Maxwell, Peggy Siegal and Sam Peabody, Gay Talese, Bettina Zilkha and me.

Later that night, I lost my warmly inscribed autographed copy of Rogues' Gallery at Dublin House or the Patriot. Sadly, others in the media would treat it with similar careless disregard. "There are word-of-mouth books that emerge out of Kansas and book clubs, but a book like this, about a great big cultural institution in New York, either gets off to a fast start or dies in the crib," Mr. Gross told me recently over lunch at the Met. "What they"-the Met-"were trying to do was suffocate the book in its crib."

At first, Mr. Gross was of two minds.

"A devil is on one of my shoulders saying there might be an organized campaign against this book, because I'm learning that there is one," he recalled thinking. "And then on the other shoulder, there's the angel going, 'No, you're a raving fucking paranoid, Michael. Your book isn't getting covered and it's driving you crazy.'"

By mid-May, he was utterly baffled. Where were the notices, the attention, the applause? "It was waking up every morning feeling like you died," he said.

Things picked up by June. The L.A. Times ran a slam piece on Rogues' Gallery that The Chicago Tribune reprinted. Vanity Fair called it "explosive" in the books column. 

Then Mr. Gross scored some speaking engagements, did two radio interviews. The New York Post's gossip column came through with items.

The Daily Beast cited it in a "best summer read" roundup. Cityfile.com, the magazine Maclean's and some newspapers in Canada liked it, too.

Not good enough: "I didn't think most of the substantial media in New York City would cut off their gonads and hand them to the museum in a jar."

While the New York Times Book Review received it warmly ("a blockbuster exhibition of human achievements and flaws"), in a write-up that appeared nearly two months after the book came out, the reviewer lamented that Mr. Gross had skimped on the art.

"Total crock of shit," he told me. "If I'd written about art, it would have sucked, because that's not what I write about! Philippe de Montebello was absolutely right, that I'm not a museographer and not an art historian. I came to write this book about the ways, means, manners and mores of the American aristocracy-that's what I write about!"

ON MAY 11 of this year, the updated paperback of Rogues' Gallery came out. During a talk at the powerHouse Arena in Dumbo that evening, Mr. Gross discussed the campaign to discredit his book and the tendency of journalists to kowtow rather than speak truth to power. Also miked was Michael M. Thomas, the novelist (Love and Money), former Observer contributor and former Met curator, who said the worst thing that ever happened to journalism in New York was when Arthur "Punch" Sulzberger accepted the presidency of the Metropolitan Museum in 1980: "Because that meant that he would be soliciting money from people his newspaper might want to write about, and I used to say that the problem today is most journalists want to dine with people they ought to want to dine on."

While both Michaels nibbled on Monsieur de Montebello by imitating his plummy accent, they begrudged him some respect for his 31 years as Met director. However, Mr. Thomas denounced other veteran staffers who didn't show up at the recent memorial service for Thomas Hoving, who died last December. Also, he joked that he knew Annette de la Renta "when she was fat and he was thin."

On the way out, I bought a copy and was instantly hooked. Every page contained at least one tasty tidbit. Who knew that John D. Rockfeller Jr. effectively ran the museum behind the scenes for 50 years? Or that the Met's collection might not be so priceless after all: According to one ex-staffer, it's in the $300 billion-to-$400 billion range. Or that John Fairchild wrote a roman à clef inspired by Carter and Amanda Burden called The Moonflower Couple, and it's available on Amazon for $1.37? Or that Mrs. Astor once wore a precious Greek vase as a hat during a boozy board meeting? (Not sure I needed to know that she was tested for syphilis.)

Hearing I was high on his book, Mr. Gross agreed to take me on a tour of "his" Met. Wearing shades, a safari jacket, tight Levi's and Prada loafers, he was outside there on a Tuesday afternoon. Although boyish and soft-spoken, he's the last guy I'd want interrogating me. Journalism's in his blood. His father, Milton Gross, was a nationally syndicated New York Post sports columnist for three decades and author of books about the 1947 Yankees, the boxer Floyd Patterson and (not) learning to play golf.

Growing up in Rockville Centre, Michael spent a lot of time at Yankee Stadium, the Polo Grounds, Shea, the Garden. His mother, Estelle Gross, a registered nurse, had been a charter subscriber to New York magazine. Her son knew Mailer, Wolfe, Halberstam, Breslin and Talese cold. To please his father, he promised to become a lawyer, then reneged after coming across one of his dicta in a Kansas City Star obit: "When you run with the pack, you write like the pack. I run alone." (His daughter, and Michael's sister, Jane made the same decision to write, and recently took a buyout after 27 years at The Times; while covering the AIDS crisis in the early '80s, she became one of the first reporters to get "anal sex" printed in the paper.)

At 19, Mr. Gross earned his first byline and $25 for a review of a Doors' album in Crawdaddy. Right out of Vassar College, where he majored in intellectual history and fun, he wrote about rock 'n' roll for high-paying one-hand mags like Gallery, Chic, Club, Swank, Genesis and Penthouse. He had to send Xeroxes to his mother because there would be gaping vaginas on the reverse side of his stories.

In the summer of '78, he edited The Fire Island News, partied too much and then dropped off the face of the earth, cut his hair, bought a suit and grew up. Next up, a copywriting job, a fiction class taught by Joyce Carol Oates, a serious novel, and three published mysteries with a female detective protagonist that sold 65,000, 35,000 and 9,000 copies, respectively.

In 1985, he landed a column in The Times, Fashion Notes, and went on to write for scores of publications, profiling such icons as John F. Kennedy Jr., Madonna, Richard Gere, Calvin Klein, Alec Baldwin and Greta Garbo, while churning out books (he's 140 pages into his 10th, about Beverly Hills). He said there are two kinds of journalism: "Access, which is you get hired by [a glossy mag] because you have a Rolodex, they're all your friends, you can say, 'Now we're going to put you in this person's dress and we will not ask you about Scientology.' And then there's enterprise, which is, 'I won't talk to you, fuck you, go away!' And the most fun of all is combining the two. I think that's what I do."

He's not a hatchet man?

"I've been called that, and character assassin."

For 24 years, Mr. Gross has been married to Barbara Hodes, who designs for her own fashion label, Bibelot. They travel overseas a lot and live in an enviable midtown apartment full of nice flea market furniture, New Journalism and history books, stacks of albums (Beatles, Stones, Lou Reed), autographed baseballs (Roger Maris) and fashion photography (Avedon).

FIRST STOP ON the tour was the Met's bookstore, where a clerk lamented that there were no copies of Rogues' Gallery available, and never would be. After Mr. Gross flashed his press card at admissions, I did the same and thought, no longer will I have to claim poverty ("Sorry, I can only afford $10 today") and promise to become a member soon. (A week later, I received a membership from my mother as a birthday present.)

Next stop, underneath the Great Hall staircase where the original one is preserved. Next point of interest, the Hearst screen from San Simeon. Entering the American Wing, I noted the Tiffany stained glass thingy and Diana the Huntress in the middle of the courtyard. Unimpressed, Mr. Gross pointed to the name advertised high above the Louis Sullivan staircase from the Chicago Stock Exchange: Charles Engelhard, the mining magnate who inspired the Ian Fleming villain "Auric Goldfinger" and adopted the future Annette de la Renta.

Personally, I think she came off like an awe-inspiring badass in the book. All it took was learning that she used to tear around her parents' mansion on horseback and was expelled from Foxcroft for calling the headmaster a "fucking bastard!"

Midway through lunch, a thick-necked man sat next to me and texted as Mr. Gross spewed controversy into my huge junky tape recorder. Private investigator? A "fixer" from Cravath?

So is the Met some kind of religious cult? I whispered.

"That's a very good analogy!" Mr. Gross said loudly. "A religion that sits on land and in a building owned by the people of the City and State of New York. And all the objects of veneration for that cult are held in trust for the people of the world. Our land, our house, our stuff, our museum, and yet the people who run it have for 140 years considered it theirs, not ours."

Any weird rituals in the cult?

"An entire calendar of rituals, at which one is expected to show up and ante up. There's a series of dinners and previews during the year for trustees only, and rituals of ascendance. Part of the reason why so many of the current rich people don't want to play the game is because it requires genuflecting to the rituals of the cult for 15 years before you get any power here. First, it's give, get or get out, that's ritual number one. Second, pay your dues. Serve. Start on a lesser committee, prove your value, show up, give money, buy things, notch up, play the game, buy a dinner at this table, notch up, keep your mouth shut, don't talk to reporters. Is it Scientology? No. Is it a cult? Sure it is."

But why do rich people care so much about getting their names on a wall?

"I would say ego and the quest for secular immortality is probably one of the leading reasons," Mr. Gross said, before telling a story about A. Alfred Taubman, who was too demanding about how many times and how large his name had to appear on a wall. "It's the Henry Kravis wing because Henry wasn't as demanding."

The security goon got up. Mr. Gross assured me that he was a tourist, having spotted his Met button, and the tour continued.

As we wandered from gallery to gallery, it was clear that Mr. Gross was more interested in the provenance than the art. He wanted to find out if the André Meyer gallery still exists. It took 20 minutes to find. The former head of Lazard Frères (a.k.a. the "Picasso of banking"), who died in 1979, was down to two rooms.

"His family wouldn't give more money," Mr. Gross explained. "Secular immortality now has a used-by date-rather, a pay-by date."

We blew off the Picasso exhibit and studied names engraved on the grand staircase. Mr. Gross wondered where they'd go next and was excited to find empty plaques on the second floor. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted another former Lazard chairman, Michel David-Weill, and his longtime squeeze, Margo Walker, who owns West Island, which inspired "West Egg" in The Great Gatsby.

Mr. David-Weill, a Met trustee, kept walking, but Ms. Walker stopped to chat. "Oh, I read it word for word, every page," she said of Rogues' Gallery. "They wouldn't let you in and kept trying to throw you out!"

"Oh, but you have to read the new chapter," its author said.

editorial@observer.com

What animal did he have the most in common with?

"A lion," Mr. Stern said without hesitation. "Because my Hebrew name is 'lion'. My name is Leonard, the lion-hearted, from medieval times?  So I kind of fell into it for lack of a better association when I was a kid."

Mr. Stern admitted to talking to his cat all the time.

"I tell him to stop bothering me and scratching up the furniture," he said. "But I have a good relationship with animals. I used to have a pet supply company. Hartz Mountain, right." (We knew that because for one thing, we used to help mow his vast, endless lawn in the Hamptons and almost got fired for going into his pool house bar for some ice.)

Does he think of animals as his equals?

"My wife would be very upset with me but I believe we're superior to every other living species in the world," Mr. Stern said. "We're the top of the food chain. Animals aren't as aggressive as human beings. They only kill when they have to eat. I mean, you wouldn't have any of this genocide or Holocaust or wars in the animal kingdom—they don't kill for the sake of rage, only when they have to eat. I mean, the most ferocious lion will only kill if it has to eat and the most ferocious human being is a mass murderer."

We showed him a list of billionaires—what kind of animals were they like?

"I'm not going there. I know lots of these guys and there's one thing you don't want: a bunch of billionaires really angry at you. Some are real predators. There's very few pussycats among them."

James Gardiner, a tall, WASP-y white-hunter-looking guy, was standing by a pet-able alligator. The anthropolgist and novelist (The Lion Killer) panned the crowd, and "chimpanzees" came to mind. "They share about 98 percent of our DNA," he said. "I've seen them in Uganda and they're exactly like us. They're very vicious. This guide was telling me, every single chimpanzee here, all these males have killed other males, they're really like us. They're tough but not as tough as New Yorkers."

By a strokeable Arctic fox, we spotted exotic bird Georgette Mosbacher, who was wearing a pink Donna Karan dress, pearls and carrying a diamond-encrusted solid gold purse with a gold lion on top. She was talking to Cornelia Bregman, wife of Serpico and Scarface producer Marshall Bregman. Both women love their dogs.

"Guinevere, she's my baby girl," Ms. Mosbacher said of her King Charles spaniel.

Ms. Bregman went on about her Shih Tzu she rescued from the ASPCA but Ms. Mosbacher pounced and took over.

"My little girl has a total vocabulary, no, she really does," she said.

"They understand like one or two words, like come, sit, stay, let's go, toy—

"—Guinevere knows a lot more than that. My friends tease me because I can be on the phone with them and then she comes into the room and gets into something, and I start talking to her like a human being and they're like, 'Georgette, who are you talking to?' I go, 'My dog.' And I know they think I'm a little wacky but I do, I talk to her."

"Me, too," Ms. Bregman added.

"I say, 'Do not chew on Mama's shoes!' and 'Stay out of the closet!' And she understands, she'll stop and she'll whine and she'll let me know—and when I put cream on on, she likes to lick the cream off my legs."

"Oh, that's cute."

Just off the legs right? we asked.

"Oh, no, she'll lick the cream off anywhere it is! It's just easier to get your legs."

Ms. Bregman said her dog is never alone because he suffers from separation anxiety.

"We take him out every night, he's in our car and then our driver takes him back to the house and feeds him and walks him," she said. "He's purple, by the way, and has manicures and pedicures. I take him to this place in Los Angeles called Olympic Dog Grooming and they dye his tail and his ears purple! And he's called 'the Prince' in our building. And when we get in at night, I take off my shoes and say, 'Car-ry the shoe!' And the little prince goes prancing about and he carries the shoe and he loves to carry the shoe. And when he goes for 'walkies' outside during the day, he takes a toy with him while he does his business. He carries the toy for his walk! He's so proud of it. He's so grateful. He's been given a second chance."

"You know what they say in Washington, if you want a friend, get a dog," said Ms. Mosbacher. "It's still an absolute truism. My dog loves me and is smiling no matter what. I can yell at my dog and she still smiles back at me. She's a higher being than I am by far. I really want to come back as my dog. I think she's got it all figured, what life is all about and true happiness."

After Ms. Bregman said Sarah Palin looked most like a little pug ("with her doggie hair"), the women went their separate ways.

Ms. Mosbacher said she thought the former VP candidate was more like a focused and graceful gazelle. "If I had to pick an animal, probably an eagle," she said. "Well, because an eagle soars above."

On her way to see the snow leopard, the Republican fund-raiser and operative recalled the time she was bitten by a cottonmouth.

"I am basically fearless, but I was in my backyard in Houston, it was January, and all of a sudden I felt something just prick my ankle and I looked down and saw the fang mark and then it hit me a second time," she said. "I've been robbed at gunpoint and wasn't as traumatized. I could not move to help myself, I was frozen in fear."

Fortunately, the snake had been hibernating, its venom was all viscous, couldn't really flow, so all that was required was a tetanus shot.

Ms. Mosbacher squealed at the sight of her friend Carl Bernstein and after they caught up, we asked the legendary investigative journalist what animal he most resembled.

"Cats!" he said. "I have a cat and I talk to her all day. She gets up on my keyboard and types. I'm independent like a cat."

Had he ever had a bad experience with an animal?

"Yes, with my own cat! My son Jacob brought his beautiful dog Miles to visit, and I decided to introduce Miles to the cat. I was holding her and she proceeded to hiss, went at me with her claws in the face, there was blood all over the place and the next day my hand started to swell up and I had to go to Southampton Hospital because I had cat-scratch fever, from my own cat!"

Mr. Bernstein said Punkin is the greatest cat and superior to him.

"She runs the joint," he said, before checking out our list.

"Obama's definitely a cat. Bloomberg is a troubled animal right now. Gates is a bear but kind of between a big bear and a koala bear. Soros and Geffen, they're Jewish bears. ... They're all meat eaters, serious carnivores."

It was dinner time now. New York Social Diary's David Patrick Columbia looked lost in between two rows of tables.

"I think I'm most like a horse, always running, nervous, sensitive," he said, then took a quick look at our list. "Blomberg's an elephant—they have a long tail. Bill Gates, kangaroo. Looks like he hops a lot. David Koch, a goat. Listen to his laugh. I always say Wilbur Ross is a cat, a cheshire cat. George Soros, a monkey. Warren Buffett, a porcupine. David Geffen, an iguana. Ron Perelman, a porpoise. Steven Rattner, T. Boone Pickens, crows. Carl Icahn, giraffe. Henry Kravis, a penguin. I think there are a lot fewer billionaires here. Ersatz billionaires. This is definitely a jungle. I gotta figure out where the fuck I'm sitting."

I’m not a big fan of dressing up like a prepped-out Hamptons dork.

Yet, there I was, sporting the obligatory blue blazer, linen shirt, khakis, and suede moccasins, desperately trying to fit in with the stuffy upper-crust crowd watching British scion Prince Harry take on Argentinean stud Nacho Figueras at the star-studded Veuve Clicquot Manhattan Polo Classic on Governor’s Island on Saturday afternoon, May 30.

It was glamorous. “It’s so lovely to see all these wonderful people dressed beautifully, ladies in hats,” said Mark Cornell, president and CEO of event sponsor Moet Hennessy and a dead ringer for the writer Christopher Hitchens.

It was exciting. “I love men who hit balls with sticks on islands off of Manhattan,” gushed the artist Dustin Yellin.

It was climactic. “Prince Harry! Sets up Revlich! And Revlich wins the game in the final seconds!” hollered the game’s announcer.

It was, in the words of writer Bob Morris, a “rubby” situation: “People feel that if they’re going to go to a polo match and then, on top of it, you have the imprimateur of Prince Harry, then they’ve rubbed up against privilege.”

And privilege was in plenty supply.

“I’m not witnessing a lot of recession suffering, that’s for sure,” said Mr. Morris, scanning the well-heeled crowd that afternoon. “I’m seeing the Hamptons moving into New York. I’m seeing a fuck-load of real estate that somebody must develop. I’m seeing a lot of well dressed people in need of a tab of ecstasy. You know what else it needs? Lily Allen walking around with a little potty mouth, drunk and insulting people.”

Earlier that morning, I had read all about Prince Harry’s hugely hyped U.S. visit in the New York Post, a trip culminating with the day’s looming polo match. He had schlepped up to Harlem, inspiring the kids with that common touch he inherited from his late mum, Princess Diana. What a role model!

This was the kinder, gentler Prince Harry, of course, a far cry from the pot-smoking, paparazzi-scuffling, Nazi-uniform-wearing royal pain in the arse that you read about in the British tabloids; the guy who once referred to a fellow solider serving in Afghanistan as a “raghead.”

In fact, that seemed to be the whole point of his visit; undoing his hard-earned bad-boy image.

“He’s doing a good job this week of doing all the right things, keeping a low profile,” David Lauren, son of Ralph and heir apparent to his father’s fashion empire, would tell me on the polo grounds later that afternoon; errant balls twice whizzing past us—one nearly decapitating some poor young woman in a big hat. “And he should stay low key for now, be understated. I think people are looking for him to be a good reflection of his country.”

I, too, tried to keep a low profile that afternoon. But it’s hard when you’re strapped with that all-important orange wristband. This was my golden ticket, entitling me to easier entry amid some super tight security and also allowing me the pleasure of briskly strolling past spectators in the general admission cheap seats. Commoners!

My ego soared all the way down an endless red carpet, fellow reporters and photographers roped off lest they invade my personal space with their microphones, recorders, stench.

I recognized a few comrades standing in the press line but didn’t nod, just kept staring straight ahead—hey, it is what it is, suckers, eat it!—waiting for a few camera clicks and inevitable whispers of “who’s he?”

Doesn’t happen. Suddenly, I heard someone excitedly say, “Are you Nacho’s sister?” Flashbulbs galore.

For the rest of the day, Mercedes Figueras, sister of Nacho, walked around saying, “I’m not your sister!”

Finally, I arrived at the VIP tent, where things quickly began to unravel. It seemed my hallowed orange wrist band no longer cut the mustard. I needed to fork over at least $1,000 (and up to $50,000) for a silver one to mingle with the A-listers.

Don’t you know who I am? An unwavering publicist pointed way off in the distance, where I was to spend the next five hours cooking in the sun. My heart sank as I watched some of the same journalists that I’d just been pitying get whisked right in. They saw me too. Ouch.

I guess that was part of the point of this whole extravaganza—to keep the prince away from fun-loving people like me.

Or Bungalow 8 owner Amy Sacco, for that matter, who later described her dream date with the dashing prince thusly: “I would kidnap him, give him a funny mustache, take him to a Rangers game, then to Patsy’s pizza in Brooklyn and off clubbing after, with Suzanne Bartsch, Kenny Kenny and Eric Conrad, then to La Esquina for breakfast burritos, before the tattoo parlor, then Bungalow 8 for a nightcap.”

Of course, Harry has a far less ambitious social secretary these days. After the match, he would be whisked back to England, long before the start of the official after-party later that night at Pink Elephant. (His absence partially explained the party’s lackluster turnout—the ubiquitous Byrdie Bell and her crew even failed to show up!  Another reason: “Pink Elephant is sooo 2005,” as one nonplussed attendee put it.)

Yet, relegated to the so-called “picnic area,” nursing some champagne against my gastroenterologist’s wishes (too gassy), I couldn’t help but envy Prince Harry. Guy’s got all the youth, fame, money he could ever want and unquestionably presides as grand marshal in a stunning parade of ass beyond my wildest dreams.

And look at me, middle aged, swatting bugs, getting sunburned, miserable, and all for naught. I might as well be sitting with the commoners across the field.

Incensed, I stormed over to make my case for inclusion to the VIP gatekeepers, one of whom eventually agreed to let me into the tent, just as soon as the prince arrived.

I turned around and, suddenly, there he was—the prince!—hair messy like he’d just woken up from a long nap, hands in his pockets, schlumpy, walking by with his mates. I overheard one guy ask him if he happened to know Alexandra so-and-so, probably some hot dame. The prince said he did not. What a player!

I tried to follow them inside but was barred yet again at the gate. This time, I was told I could finally join the party just as soon as the prince leaves.

Eventually, I made it inside, where it seemed the prince had left an indelible impression on New York celebs.

“You know what, I’m not much of a royal sort of watcher,” said the designer Marc Jacobs, wearing thick James Brown-style platform shoes. “It’s like, I’m a New Yorker and the royal family has never fascinated me so much. But I just got to meet him and I have to say he was immediately charming, what one would expect a prince to be, really, really cool, nice, friendly, very engaging, and cool. Seems like a good guy.”

What about his missteps?

“I think we all do missteps,” said developer Aby Rosen. “His are reported. Yours and mine are not reported. So that’s the only difference.”

Interview magazine publisher Peter Brant described the prince as a bold, aggressive and fearless polo player like his dad, Prince Charles.

What’s he got that I don’t have?

“He’s a prince,” Mr. Brant said. “You know how they say it’s nice to be king?”

Rapper LL Cool J said that Harry had gravitas, a generous spirit, and didn’t give off any airs. The bad boy stuff was a plus. “None of us are perfect, we all have flaws and I think the average person when they see royals they think of them as perfect and him having some flaws, that only makes him more human and more natural and we respect that,” he said.

At the bar, investment banker Euan Rellie declared it a great day to be British because of Harry who, despite those “very trivial missteps” a few years ago, had emerged as a real credit to his country. “The Nazi uniform thing wasn’t a great idea in retrospect,” Mr. Rellie said. “Not particularly proud of that one. But he’s okay, he was a kid. I made mistakes at age 35 that he made when he was 18 and thank God mine didn’t get into the newspaper!”

After ordering a grassy mallet, Mr. Rellie continued, “People here seem to have fallen under his spell and I think he’s got some of his mother’s fairy dust. He’s also well spoken, entirely authentic, and he has some of the best qualities of British people, in that he takes serious things sometimes rather lightly and light things rather seriously in a way. He’s doing good charity work and seems to enjoy himself, wears jeans with a rip in them which humanizes him and makes him convincing as a result, gives him added authority. He’s not overtrained or over polished and comes across very naturally.”

Earlier, Mr. Rellie had witnessed the prince asking the photographers to “cool it guys” when they were getting carried away. He found it charming and disarming.

“There’s a high glamour quotient but the other thing that he brings is a slightly informal way which again makes it even more sexy,” Mr. Rellie said. “Girls are certainly nuts about him. My wife is nuts about him and we’ve been married for seven years! Talk to Lucy.”

Lucy Sykes Rellie, wearing a white wavy hat, chic fitted dress, fabulous high sexy shoes, described Harry as the antithesis of the stuffy old royal, inheriting his mum’s common touch and natural charm.

She denied having a crush on the prince, however: “Noooo! Noooo. He’s like 20 years younger than me! But I was very, very impressed. I mean everyone, I looked around the room and they were all in tears.”

Actress Chloe Sevigny, dressed in an ensemble she described as “American Gigolo slash Great Gatsby,” sympathized with young Harry’s life under his overbearing handlers: “I think they’re keeping him caged in. Poor prince.”

With that, my envy went through the roof. I had spoken to Ms. Sevigny on a half dozen occasions over the years and always failed to impress her with my drunken inappropriate questions. Harry didn’t even have to go out to get the actress’s attention.

The writer Mr. Morris found this amusing: “Oh, oh, oh, you can’t, like, bother just, like, envying, I don’t know, Dana Vachon, something reasonable. You have to go for the prince, the thin prince. Nice idea, George. Ha-ha-ha-ha!”

The good vibe changed as soon as the pop star Madonna arrived with her kids and an entourage to rival the prince’s own massive security force.

Her bodyguards made sweeps, demanding to see wristbands, kicking people out of banquettes, all to make things safe and comfy for the most famous woman in the world. I overheard several revelers saying that she ruined everything.

For two hours, I had been free to roam the VIP tent but suddenly a security guy was on my case, too, demanding that I produce a silver wristband or leave. Somehow I slipped away but continued to fret about the inevitable hand on my shoulder. I prayed they’d be gentle about it and wouldn’t toss me out back by the porta potties.

As the polo match reached its dramatic conclusion, the Material Mom vaulted the VIP fence to get a closer look from the sidelines.

Why didn’t I think of that earlier?

The announcer boomed, “What a match, what a game, what a beautiful day! What a great day for charity! What a great day for polo!”

As Madonna climbed back over the fence to her banquette, she stumbled, fell forward and grabbed onto a tent pole, which came toppling down in the direction of her children. Miraculously, they were saved.

“I’ve had no champagne, officer,” she said, laughing.

With reporting by Caitlin Keating

I bet porn fiends, pre-Internet, used to do that: “Oh, I’m just walking down the street, down Eighth Avenue in the 40s, minding my own business, running errands, and hey, what’s this new establishment? Peep World. Maybe I’ll take a quick peep inside, see what the fuss is all about. Yes, I would like some tokens, Pakistani guy behind the counter, much obliged. Ahh, I see, the booths are in the back, near the man pushing the mop. Well, I wasn’t planning on coming in here today, but …”

My first time was in 2004. I was pacing outside a newsstand on 72nd Street, pretending to check my cell phone messages. As soon as the place cleared out, I darted in, grabbed a Vanity Fair and asked for a Mega Millions. Before I could have my $103 million fantasy, four creamy private-school girls (I’d guess Dalton or Spence) got in line behind me. The Indian guy was taking his sweet time with the ticket and said, “Just one Mega, you sure?”

I heard one of the Serenas say, “Did you see what that guy was getting? A Vanity Fair and a lottery ticket!”

Wonder what she’s up to these days. Out of college for a year. Parents haven’t cut her off but she’s living with three other girls on Park Avenue South, can’t find a job, slutting around, pigging out, 33 pounds overweight.

There was a time when I, too, felt disgust for lottery ticket buyers: That was something one’s servants did. In fact I’d rather be seen by a rich WASP lady as I was leaving a porn emporium than when buying a lottery ticket. They’d get on the horn and be like, “Guess who I ran into the other day? Do you remember that silly, no-good pissant George Gurley? I saw him and he was … sorry, can’t contain myself … he was … buying a lottery ticket! Oh-ho-ho!”

These days I buy once a week, preferably when the payout is north of $50 million. I’d feel like a real sucker if I won when it was only $15 million, because after taxes you only get a third, and what am I gonna do with $4.5 million? Buy a sweet townhouse in the West Village? Great, now I’m broke again, thanks a lot.

If I won big, like $270 million, would I really be happy? Definitely, for at least six months. Beachfront property in Bermuda would be nice. Still afraid of Jamaica. Those rastas seem real friendly, then they’re doing voodoo and nailing you to a tree like a rooster.

The other night I went to a party at Allison Sarofim’s Greenwich Village townhouse. In a tent out back was a Henry Moore sculpture and waiters holding trays of burgers and Champagne. I went to school with Ms. Sarofim in Houston. I had a swimming pool back then, and access to a Jaguar. Pavarotti came to dinner. I didn’t think anything of it. Was into basketball, this girl Hope, weed, beer bongs, go-carts, the Omen trilogy. Twenty-five years ago. Couldn’t care less about money.

It was like I was born on third base, like George W. Bush, but I ran in the wrong direction.

At the party, social butterfly Euan Rellie, wearing a dark blue fitted silk jacket, told me he buys lottery tickets when it gets over $200 million or he’s feeling depressed. A while back I had to read that he was looking at $5 million townhouses downtown and it really stuck in my craw. Mr. Rellie told me he’s not happy about the tax situation.

“I’m all in favor of a progressive tax, but it’s gotten too progressive now,” he said. “I have to pay a lot of money in taxes, because I’m an investment banker and the only way I can get back is by winning the lottery.”

If he won, he said, he’d take his wife, Lucy Sykes, to Harry Winston to upgrade her engagement ring. “Bryan Adams, the pop star, said to me, ‘Your wife has a canardly ring,’” he said. “And I said, ‘What’s a canardly ring?’ He said, ‘Canardly see it, it’s so small.’ And my wife has always assumed that I’ll get rich sooner or later, and she’d like an upgrade. At this point, I think she’d settle for a $600,000 ring.”

What else would he buy with his winnings?

“I’d throw a party that people come to who don’t know me and have never heard of me, but they still hear it’s going to be such a lavish party, that they’ll come anyway.”

What about giving a few thousand to homeless beggars?

“No, I never give money to people on the street asking for money. … Oh, what the fuck is that? Oh, it’s the neighbors.” Someone next door had crept up to the wall and was shooting water at everyone from a garden hose.

A few nights later at the Four Seasons, the restaurant’s co-owner Julian Niccolini told me he buys a lottery ticket every day. “I would go back to Italy, sit in the sun, have some good, great sex,” he said. “I would do charity: Citymeals-on-Wheels. Then more Italy vacation and more and more sex. I give all the money to charity and then have more sex.”

At the Metropolitan Club, I ran into Jan Amory, at a book party for An American Experience: Adeline Moses Loeb and Her Early American Jewish Ancestors. Ms. Amory, who was wearing sexy pajamas, was once very wealthy and dated big shots like Warren Beatty and Henry Kissinger. She lives in Newport and buys a Quick Pick every other day. What does she fantasize about?

“I just remember what I did, so it’s kind of, Can I do it again?” she said. “I’d take 20 of my best friends to the Hôtel du Cap in Antibes for a week and charter a yacht. It would be all my friends who’ve been good to me since I lost my money, not the other ones.”

Nearby, Wendy Vanderbilt told me that her maid turned her on to the lottery. “I believe in magic!” she said. “Imagine, it turns out to be a Vanderbilt who won $20 million! I’d put it in the bank and think carefully about it, because I think you’d go crazy when you won it.”

Later in the week, I went to a party for Michael Gross’ book, Rogues’ Gallery, at Georgette Mosbacher’s Fifth Avenue apartment. On the way out, I asked Thomas Hoving, the former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, if he’d ever bought a lottery ticket.

“Never. Fuck it,” he said.

Other reasons I got rid of the cell? For one thing (and I know the jury is still out), I have zero interest in getting cancer of the balls. Sex life is hurting enough lately. Nah, actually I got some last night. Screamed. Also tired of texting all the time, receiving texts, anticipating texts, getting excited and disappointed about texts, hearing that text ring go off when I’m watching TV and getting up off the Eames to find out it’s a mass text cleverly disguised as a personal one. Hate the word “text.” Text, text, text, send me a text! Text me!

Could really use some potpourri in my bathroom now. Dropped the kids off at the pool. Gave birth to seven or eight guppies, a great big northern pike and a cigar-shaped UFO.

My favorite Depeche Mode song would be “New Life.” Talked to D. A. Pennebaker about them once and he said the documentary he did on them was about the most fun he’d ever had doing a documentary. Snow White turned me onto the song, danced with her all alone to it in basement of Siberia bar circa ’01. Got no action but she danced real close. These cool slick freaking geniuses are like 18 years old. Tell ya, you’re gonna be tapping your feet, swaying around, nodding your noggin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQDI-C441is&feature=related.

Also wanted to curtail the late nights, which having a cell phone often leads to. Straw that broke the camel’s back happened on a recent Sunday—I was at home, being responsible, doing the dishes, brushing the cat and a text came in from a 19-year-old who wanted to meet me for drinks with her mother. I thought, Well, even though I’m happily engaged, I’m not a man if I pass up this opportunity. Started thinking about how in 1931 Brooke Shields’ grandfather skipped the finals at Wimbledon for a threesome with a mother and her daughter or maybe it was two identical twin countesses. So I went to meet them and had a real nice time but ended up in a bathroom on the Lower East Side with the 19-year-old and two scary ne’er do wells who were trying to shovel some toxic diesely white powder into my nostrils with little sharp knives. I couldn’t do it, I was so terrified! Got home at 6 a.m. and it took three days to fully recover.

The Metropolitan Museum has a bronze version of Degas’ “Little Dancer, Age 14.” Her name was Marie, she was one of “the little rats” at the Paris Opera, whatever. When the sculpture was first displayed, Parisians were horrified, thought she was an ugly, bestial monkey whore with a low primitive forehand. I think she’s pretty cute even though she’s only about 36 inches high. Wouldn’t mind having her running around my pad fixing me coffee and doing pirouettes, long as she kept her mouth shut while I was emailing. Apparently she and her sis were hookers, pimped out by their mother, and Marie made the gossip columns as a girl with loose morals and probably came to a sad end in the gutter. Price of immortality. Here see for yourselves: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QL126MT2QA

Dude, you remember anything from the other night after 3:20? We got into a cab and then what? Did I go by myself? We take a cab together? Only thing I remember is asking Kid Rock about Bob Seger. Remember everything from Rodeo and Emily’s but do not remember much else between 3:30 and 8. Is that called a blackout? I mean I know where I was, but can’t remember too many details.

Oh boy, more Googley nonsense you’ve been polishing up for years in order to impress girls in bars and make dudes feel inferior. Give me a break. What if I was in the woods, set my tape recorder down right next to a tree that was teetering around, about to fall, hit record, then went into town for a snack and came back 45 minutes later? Think there would be a sound.

Quantum whatever is all myth at this point and will probably be totally discredited next year. Its main purpose now is it allows people to show off, feel superior as they hold forth—hey, look at me, I can explain string theory. You may as well have faith in Wicca, or some big tata cult. Not to sound deluded but I’ve always thought I’d make a decent cult leader. I wouldn’t go down the sex and child abuse road, wouldn’t demand too much money (just enough to keep me afloat), wouldn’t mess with minds all the time—I’d be my regular old self. All that would happen is once a month or so I’d send out an email saying “Don’t use Sprint” or “Get rid of your cell phone for six months” or “Don’t Google anything today, use Alta Vista.”

Believe it or not, marriage is not a pressing issue. If it was, she’d be dropping hints all the time, right? She might have mumbled something during the Sex and the City movie.

Cops are awesome in general and so is our military. Side note: figured out a strategy you might want to try with your girlfriend: Be around all the time, drive her crazy, follow her around the pad in your PJs, like an old geezer, and ask “What’s going on now?” “What are we gonna do tonight?” “What’s wrong, what did I do?” “Are you mad at me?” And she’ll beg you to go out and carouse and stay out all night. Works every time.

Well a fair amount of sports fans are ridiculous, like 40 percent. Beginning to think ballet’s something I should know something about, too. All I know is there’s a guy named Balanchine, Nuruyev (sp?), Misha, Merce, Peter Martins and Darci Kistler and Karole Armitage, whose father taught me biology. Had to take it at Kansas U to get into UVM, but fell in love with a girl and decided to stay at KU. Two months later she goes, “If you call me again I’m calling the police!”

Think I’m too stoned to work out. Hope my guy has weaker weed next time. Side note: anyone seen The 400 Blows? Whatta masterpiece.

Going to Met today, buying a $60 membership, which gets you unlimited visits for a year and other perks. Same basic price as sushi dinner at Hatsuhana, four drinks at the Beatrice, entry into cheap boomie massage joint, a month of unlimited 8 netflixes at a time. 

Went to aquarium instead, hung out with some fish. Watched a California sea otter eat a crab, whole. Not only that, watched a Planet Earth special in 4-D. It’s 3-D so it’s like you’re swimming with the dolphins and humpbacks but 4-D cause you get hit by bursts of whooshy air and splashed with water. Seats in there vibrate, too. Know anyone who wants a fish? Person in my building sent this out: “We are moving overseas and have a fish to give away to a good home - if you are interested please call Kylie…”

Saw guards yell at two people at the Met the past few days. First (dude) touched a 200-year-old painting. Second (woman) took a flash photo right next to one. Also saw a girl rubbing a sculpture. All three of these people were from the same hemisphere. Guess they don’t teach art gallery etiquette over there. But they’re sure good at computer espionage.

Sometimes I wonder if Jon Stewart is more prick than mensch. In spite of all the success and adulation he seems to still have a chip on his shoulder. Glad I’m not a member of the media who sucks up to him on a regular basis. The Daily Show, The Daily Show, Jon Stewart this, Jon Stewart that, let’s verbally fellate him some more! See Frank Rich.

Been a little self-involved lately. Reading Catcher in The Rye and it holds up O.K. Narrator a little irritating from time to time.

I’ll never ski again and I’m fine with that. Scuba diving’s different.

I know one thing not doing: going to Cabo or anywhere in Mexico till everyone there chills out. Apparently, beheadings are becoming routine amid the gangland turmoil there—more than 200 victims recently decapitated. Not a big fan of getting my head chopped off.

Not going to Palm Beach this year for Easter. Yep, that’s out. I’d say there’s a 35 percent chance I’m going. If a private plane’s involved. Kidding. Sort of.

Here’s how to get to Roosevelt Island: Cross 59th (“the Queensboro”) bridge. Turn right, turn right, go around like 120 degrees, then go down until this big plant’s on your left, then turn left onto the bridge to Roosevelt Island. Turn left, turn right at the bottom of the fucking whatever, go down a ways and I’m right next to the tennis courts.

Had a major revelation. You want to get on someone’s good side? Call them a genius. You want them to remember something you’ve said 10 years later? Call them a genius. You want the guy at Nuvisions to help you with your computer and cable service? Call them a genius.

So by the time we’re 60 there will be a Muslim majority in Europe? That the deal? 

All right that’s it. Don’t want to start an international incident but once again, like the two other times I’ve been to the Met this week, some people have misbehaved and gotten yelled at by guards. They seem perfectly nice and excited and happy to be there, but then they go and stand too close and take flash pics right up next to a Seurat or they’re on their cell phones or touching paintings, rubbing sculptures—I’ve seen all this happen. I’m sure there’s a  simple explanation.

Don’t know what it is, but there’s something smelly looking about Gisele.

Pretty sure this Pineapple Express is both indica and sativa. The dealer acted like it was a big deal he had some. Unlike any weed I’ve ever had. Only drawback—feels like some creature’s in my head moving my brain around, adjusting it, swishing it around, playing with it with its hands like Playdoh. That can’t be good, but it’s pretty relaxing stuff overall.

All a sudden I’m in a great mood despite a negative $65 bank balance. Private plane’s sealed the deal and I’m off to Palm Beach!

Nice tram ride across East River. Dangerous intersection here—you think the cars coming off the bridge are going down Second Ave. then they’re heading right at ya. Was that person’s head elongated or am I twisted? No, heads are definitely looking funny today.

Soon after we moved here from Kansas City, Mom took me to that McDonald’s, trying to reassure my nervous 9-year-old self that things were no different here. It felt good, familiar, burgers tasted the same! As we walked out, a bum had his meat in his paw, urinating in the street.

Lexington Ave. from 57th to 61st is flat out dehumanizing these days. Body Shop. Banana Republic. The Container Store. Diesel. No Fiorucci, no head shop where I bought the “Disco Sucks” button—it’s a sandwich wrap place now. Worse than being in a North Korean jail. Joyless expressions everywhere.

Have an affection for 62nd between Third Avenue and Lex, even though was I mugged here twice. Bully asked where I went to school and said, “Gimme all your money or I’m going to fuck you up.” I ran and he murmured, “Pussy.” The other time, two inner-city youths showed me what looked to be a cap gun but said it was real and I believed it, I was 9, I’d never been kidnapped before. They led me up the street, continued to terrorize me outside a grocery store that’s not here anymore. Nice black lady saw me trembling and hollered, “Now why don’t you leave him alone!” and they took off laughing. A lady in a fur coat offered to walk me home, the youths were about 30 feet away and one pointed cap gun at me and yelled, “I’m going to blow your head off, motherfucker!” then the cap gun went pop as I buried my head into the lady’s furry bosom. This was three weeks after I moved here from Kansas.

For years I would look at the clock inside that dry cleaner’s; now the clock is gone and looks like the place is shuttering. Skateboarding and eclairs over there, snowball fight over there. One of us accidentally hit a woman, stuff flew out of her purse, and while we were helping her pick it up, she said, “You. Little. Dicks!” And tried to grab us.

There used to be a Discomat over there where I got Beatles albums and that Shaun Cassidy one with “Hey Deanie.” I liked the Kinks, too. First concert I ever saw. The guy I was with jumped onstage, danced with Ray Davies, got dragged away. Didn’t see him again for 20 years.

There’s a Wachovia bank. Feel deflated. Charles Schwab’s not as bad. More American sounding.

Penis keeps poking through hole in my boxers, need to adjust.

Sixty-second and Park. Went to school down there. Learned how to count to six in Danish and Chinese. Played one of the Beatles during a graduation event. Right before we hit the stage one of my little pals told me that I looked the least like a Beatle of the four of us. Affected my mojo during lip synch to “I Want To Hold You Hand.”

In Vitamin Shoppe, just asked for help finding a non-citrusy immune system booster. Girl did a two-minute search, got down on her knees, bent over and finally found some raspberry stuff. Box was too big, so I said I’d come back later. She gave me a look like: What are you kidding me? Is this what you do, is this your thing, you go around and have hot Asian girls do stuff for you and then say, “Oh, never mind?”

 Sixty-seventh and Lex: Spent Halloween 1980 up in that building. Mom had scored tickets to the Dead at Radio City, backstage passes, too. I was semi-into the Dead, but wanted to go trick-or-treating instead. Prevailing memory: later that night filling up a garbage bag full of various liquids and matter and hurling it down at a cab. Mom and her boyfriend ended up hanging out with Jerry Garcia and the boys. Biggest regret in life. Didn’t learn to seize the day for another 28 years. But I kept that backstage pass, stuck it on my wall at Kent School, and some hockey chimp from Rhode Island or some other latent homosexual jock swiped it. This other upperclassman named Colin (a.k.a. “Stiffy”), who’s now a lawyer in California, stole my friend Bruce’s sweet stereo. Not too late to give it back, Stiffy. Pretty sure you got that name cause you got caught masturbating, dolphin in hand.

Hey lady—if your awning says 765 Park, but it’s technically between Park and Lex, not firmly on Park Avenue, does that really count as Park Avenue? I think not. Oh look, there’s 740 Park. What a joke. Suckers. Always thought 720 was better. There’s the Asia Society. Saw some Eskimos dancing in there in ’91. 

Doctor in that building wants to widen my nasal passages. Afraid I won’t wake up after anesthesia—plus still owe gastroenterologist $500 for endoscopy, plus maybe I need a colonoscopy first. But it would be nice to smell again. Whoa—just had one of those involuntary, inexplicable feelings that only happen while walking in New York City—out of the blue, something clicks, waves of pure pleasure wash over you, then you think how you really, really like New York City a lot and there is no place you’d rather be. Whole thing lasts 10 seconds max.

JG Melon too crowded and everyone looks mean, white, hung over, and miserable on their cell phones. Look at those guys waiting with their green hunting jackets (got one on myself) and pricey sunglasses (ditto). These few blocks always bring something out in me I dislike, a snobby demeanor from all those years when I tried to blend in on Jupiter Island, Southampton, Lyford Cay, Locust Valley. Let’s not beat up on self. Teenager then. Dork. Goof. Bad attitude. Difficult. Delinquent. Broke that neon sign in Sag Harbor in ’86 (I’ll pay for it, within reason); drove onto train tracks in Amagansett. Doesn’t count because you’re pre-moral at that age.

Mortimer’s. Had dinner with an aristocrat lady in her 70s. I was very sick but she made me stay there a full three hours. Made plans to meet another beautiful refined lady of a certain age at the Russian Tea Room—but I was living in this cheap hotel, it wasn’t meant to be, now it’s too late.

78th street. Scary dance at Allen Stevenson school in ’79. Mean eighth-graders ragged on me, my pal and our dates for our cute wholesome dance moves, then one of them whipped out a knife or at least said he had one. Girlfriend’s father came to get us. Outside saw preppie blond burnout dude take a deep pull of what I assumed to be marijuana and it terrified me. Just Googled him—he’s a stockbroker and has given a few thou to Democrats and Republicans. Once he and I were walking by Allen Stevenson and one of us threw a rock through second-floor window. Wasn’t me.

Where am I? East 80s. Used to be a nightclub here called Country Club. Was leaving the club at 3 a.m. and chatted with cracky prostitute before returning home to West 70th and realizing I didn’t have keys. Or money. Buzzed landlady, she screamed at me, so I speed-walked back through Central Park to the club, to look for my keys. Closed. Bouncer shaking his head. Ran into same prostitute, who scored my keys somehow, so I promised her a reward. Gave her my number, she called next day, but wires got crossed and it just never happened. Bad karma. Then landlady kicked me out of sweet sublet.

Walking rapidly now toward three old women on 80th Street. As I passed them I heard one say to the other, “I can’t believe how you have cheated me.”

Not sure All Washed Up is the best of all possible names for a laundromat. From this angle the neon sign for Vogue Nails looks like Vagina Nails, at least in my mind.  Good memories in 903 Park where psychotherapist Andrew Salter had his practice. He wrote The Case Against Psychonalysis, was mentioned in Manchurian Candidate and found all those clues in the Van Gogh paintings. I took my crazy French girlfriend to see him and she didn’t behave herself, told an off-color joke about a neurotic French woman being cured by a well-hung Pakistani guy. Big mistake.

I didn’t do a whole lotta spreading of the seed on Park Avenue. Uh-oh: Skinny blond mother and daughter in front of me. Don’t think lustful thoughts. Bad. Jailbait. Sin. Stop! Think of Philip Seymour Hoffman sharting in my pajamas then making me put them on. That’s better. Pretty sure Nixon lived around here.

The future of the planet? I can understand caring about my children and my children’s children but after that I’m done. Sorry.

Not so sure about the Guggenheim’s design. Seems to be a lot of wasted space up there.

ggurley@observer.com

I moved to Manhattan when I was 9. I’ve lived on Spring Street, MacDougal; on the East Side: 10th^th, 17th, 38th, 61st, 63rd, 65th, 71st (twice), and 96th. On the West Side: 69th, 70th, 71st, 74th, 80th, 88th, plus three extended stays at the Belleclaire Hotel. On Roosevelt Island I live in a former women’s lunatic asylum. The journalist Nellie Bly had to feign insanity to spend 10 days here in 1872.

Last week I decided to take a stroll all over Manhattan, see if the old fire is still there.

On the tram I’m thinking, what’s worse, being a sociopath or a psychopath? Is it psychos who occasionally have redeeming qualities like suave personalities? Wow, look at the 59th Street Bridge. Looks phallic, like it’s sliding into midtown Manhattan. Go on, give it to her real good. Hey, what am I supposed to do, censor myself? That’s what I just thought. Take it up with my brain. Not my fault.

Long Island. Spent a good 15 years hanging out on the North Shore. At one point I thought it was within the realm of possibility that a harem of the girls I was in love with might live there with me. There’d be some friction, minor disputes, but they’d get used to it. Probably not gonna happen.

Didn’t get into Choate Rosemary Hall but got my ear pierced there after a basketball game by some cool chick with a weird name. I knew a Moonstar once.

I kept the earring in for eight hours until a “friend” mocked me. Dick. Will never forgive him for throwing the shoe at my head and yelling, “Get some friends, fag!”

Not looking forward to Great Gatsby movie directed by Baz Luhrmann. Those horrific flashing red music video images from Moulin Rouge are still trapped in the old bean—can’t shake em out. Somebody stop him.

Been burping a lot lately. Might have to stop eating altogether. Might have to sleep standing up.

Looking up, I see the moon looks like a banana.

Sixtieth Street. Let’s walk up York Avenue. Scores! Got a lap dance there once and didn’t have to pay for it. Just doing my job. Have always fooled strippers by pretending I’m really into it and getting a raging purpley, so I don’t hurt their feelings. Whoa, now there’s the tennis bubble where I chipped my front tooth. Made a bad shot, threw racket into air, followed trajectory—then opponent said something so I looked down and racket crashed into my mouth.

Sixty-third Street: Took a Russian girl I met on the Jitney to that sushi place. Over dinner she confessed that she stripped part-time in Connecticut. When we walked out of restaurant a guy recognized her on the street—“Irina!” That sucked. After we got back to my place, Irina had me put on some Madonna, did a little dance and that was that. I was afraid to fall asleep, I put a knife under the bed in case she attacked me. I still have her number.

Sixty-fifth Street. Bad memory here. Picked up a black-haired alterna girl I was dating at Grand Central, she wanted to party with her friends in that building, next morning drove her to Locust Valley, when she saw the spread, she got real excited, was practically humping the columns supporting the big house. Made out with me by the pool house. I got nothing but tongue for five days.

Sixty-sixth Street. Just stared at a girl walking her dog. Tend to do that to 35 percent of women I see on the street. Not too classy. Maybe if I had a hat to tip. Don’t care what religion you are: Lust is a sin.

Sixty-ninth Street. At my fraternity one night, we pledges were forced to guzzle a pony keg in the basement and bond. A “brother” starting talking about the joys of anal sex (“Man, it’s the tightest thing you ever felt!”). I escaped, crawled into nearby female dorm, got into 69 position with a young lady. Had to clean the walls of the kitchen as punishment the next day, and when I blew that off to see the Chili Peppers and Fishbone, I had to go through pledgeship again before finally getting blackballed.

Just took two hits of bubblegum-flavored ganja; had 10-minute daydream about being very rich. Need to go to church and repent. Walking up First. Club and spa for dogs in what used to be a porno theater. A Bed Bath and Beyond is where Magique used to be. Got my first French kiss there in seventh grade.

One time an older kid on the bus said his father was in the war, fell out of a plane, landed on a bale of hay, survived, and I believed him. Prick. Now let’s all get down on our collective knees and blow Joaquin Phoenix some more for his brilliant mockumentary in progress. He’s not only a great actor but a comic genius? Please. Grow up, celebrity-worshipping nitwits.

Saw Lou Reed walk by here. Always figured he had a dentist appointment. Left him alone. Rented cars at that Avis. Met a girl outside this CVS, got her number, took her out to dinner, and nothing ever happened. Need balding shampoo. CVS makes me happy. Now I know why I don’t live here. Horns. Sirens. Puddles. Forty-nine out of 50 buildings are u-g-l-y. Almost getting hit by cars all the time. Many years ago I lost temper a tad while crossing street over here. Woman got too close to me so I smacked her BMW with my umbrella. Got into a similar contretemps two blocks away. Van got too close to me so I slapped it. The guy jumped out, gave me the once over, then smiled knowingly (aha!) and said, “Faggot.” Don’t want to repeat my comeback but it was colorful enough to freak him out and off he went.

Lived in the Concorde for a year and had sex in there, too. While reporting a story for this newspaper, met a California woman on phone and suggested she stay with me next time she’s in N.Y.C. She showed up with bags in late afternoon, we got into bed, but it didn’t work out. Droooop. Told her maybe she should stay somewhere else.

In huge building to the left a dude in seventh grade had an album with poop on the cover. Sex Pistols, I think. Anyway, it scared me. Years later, Johnny Rotten threw a piece of ice at my head. 

There’s L’Absinthe, which used to be Le Comptoir where I saw Claus Von Bulow. Got my bike tires pumped up there. That’s an attractive woman in the sushi place even though she makes me think of the Sigourney Weaver–narrated documentary about monkeys I just watched. (Don’t know this yet but several days later the chimp in Connecticut will go on his rampage. Maybe I’m clairvoyant.)

Sixty-eighth to 71st is grim and hideous. Took a French class there circa ’92. No idea why. Ran into a young socialite here and told her to touch my face ’cause I’d just had an invigorating shave at Paul Mole and she recoiled in horror. Since then I think I’ve lost that bounce in my step.

Threw soggies off that roof, where I lived for many years. Sailed ’em down onto taxis and did my best to avoid hitting old ladies. It was the ’70s. Had shopping bags full of them. Guy in penthouse caught us, yelled “Hey!” and we bolted. On way down stairwell we came upon a hundred or so Playboys, scooped them all up into the bags and while divvying them up in my bedroom, doorbell rang. It was the super, holding a Nerf  ball with my name on it. Co-conspirator left it on the roof.

Seventy-second Street: Ouch. Plimpton’s place down there. Used to mow his lawn in Sagaponack. Didn’t get the internship at Paris Review, screwed up the interview. Who are your favorite poets? I don’t know, how about you name one? Wallace Stevens.

Updike died at 76, too. Even if it’s excruciating, think I’d rather do a six-month fade out die than in my sleep. There will be tons of Demerol and TV and food and people making a big fuss over me. Always loved attention. Been famous-ish since age 3. When you’re hot, you’re hot, when you’re not, you’re not, when you’re sitting on the pot you gotta give it all you got.

Seventy-third Street. The Somerset. Went to school with a guy whose dad played the white guy on The Jeffersons. Saw him at Russian Tea Room. One time I was there with Mom and a guy came up to our table and said, “I have to tell you, your son eats beautifully.”

KFC makes me think Engelberg sitting on the pot in Bad News Bears sequel. Look, another Equinox, another Brother Jimmy’s, and Pain Quotidiens on every block. Need to sit down, take a breather. Wait, what’s this? Bounce is a restaurant and a sports lounge? Well, that clinches it: New York City is still the cultural center of the universe.

Seventy-seven^th Street: Wow, the street life of York Avenue sucks donkey balls! Cultural wasteland. Spoke too soon, there’s a Dunkin’ Donuts. Look, a Chinese and Japanese cuisine restaurant and free wine! Oh, “with dinner.” In case any winos get bright ideas.

Eighty-fifth Street: Angry middle-aged white guy outside Bailey’s pub. Didn’t make the right decisions early on. Thought he could be a ski bum and the ’70s would last forever. And now all you can do is scowl at me. I can relate. Seriously, would it have been that big a deal for me to get absolutely everything I ever wanted?

Not sure Vanilla is best of all possible names for a hair and spa place.

ggurley@observer.com

The good thing about the new Depression is that I’ve been in one for the past five years, so I’m used to it. Nice to have company.

Boom times are the worst in New York. I’d still like to slug this T-shirted guy at the Cub Room in Soho back in 1999 who told me all about his Internet start-up with 200 employees.

So nice being at Mr. Chow the other night and seeing it only half-full—no rapper or Internet guys, no Julian Schnabel and “Olatz” at that table by the bar, not even a Kelly Osbourne–caliber celeb. Just a few investment bankers, a table of five fat dudes gorging in silence, and my group. Best time I ever had there.

If a plane landing on water isn’t a good excuse to have fun, I don’t know what is.

I remember being on Nantucket in ’79 and this extra man dude Fred Von Miers knocking on the door and announcing, “It is I!”

I could really use my 30s back.

 Only one word for Captain Chesley B. Sullenberger III: Stud.

The real problem with Tropic Thunder is it’s too “clever” by half. Why not just do a spoof of a Vietnam movie, period? And I resent all the hype about how Robert Downey Jr. being in blackface was a big controversy and envelope-pushing and only he could get away with it ’cause he’s one of our finest living actors. Yawn.

9

I don’t trust 95 percent of my Facebook friends. Bunch of cocksuckers.

Being born in the mid-to-late 1930s woulda been pretty sweet. The country’s prosperous by the time you’re in high school. Too young for Korea, too old for Vietnam.

I always thought a plane being able to do that was a myth, like Santa Claus. Have you seen the video of the terrorist hijackers in Ethiopia trying it? Not pretty. The evildoer dips the wing into the water and it’s, see ya plane, see ya terrorists, see ya nice people on board.

I think I whacked it to Kate Nelligan from Eye of the Needle. May have whacked to the book version, too.

 Reminds me of that warm, knowing look the Glenn Close character sends across the room in The Big Chill. Agree, agree, loathsome movie about loathsome people, but her character’s so boneable. I’ll watch it again two more times before I croak.

Before the Civil War, what was the most dangerous place in America? Scroll down for the answer.

Kansas.

15

What the hell happened to my 30s? New Year’s Eve 2000 feels like a few weeks ago. And the thing about blowing off steam at 40 is, yes, you get your balls back, but if you’re like me, you tend to overdo it and you can’t feel your genitals for three days so what’s the point in getting your balls back metaphorically? Really need to reread The Hardness Factor and stick with it. I really should have slammed on the brakes by 2006.

This is a bad symbolic day for the evildoers. Shows how badass we are: Guy landed a plane in the water right by the West Side Highway, in same flight path as those planes.

17

Trying to think if anything’s ever happened in my lifetime that everyone agreed was a miracle. 

18

There’s that nice scene in Cat People with Annette O’Toole in the pool: Big round yabbos with big red succulent nipples. Michael McKean gets to bone her.

What are the odds of an experienced pilot like this guy landing in the water like that? One out of 30 times? Hundred? Five hundred? Like how many times in a row could this guy get it right? Side note: Figure I could probably watch Office Space two, three times a year, for the rest of my life.

I’m sorry but I am thrilled and feeling patriotic about the miracle—if that’s O.K. with you. Apparently not!

21
Maybe a Brit in World War II could have done something that heroic and cool. Not now. France? Ha. Also, what timing: Five days before a new prez? We’re obviously living in God’s country. Don’t think the evildoers don’t know that. Bad day for the terrorists. Case closed.

 I was six, seven blocks away when the miracle occurred. Lots of other coincidences I won’t get into, but I’m afraid this is the closest thing to a religious experience I may ever have so I’m milking it. Unless you count the first time I did acid, at the Omega fest back in ’87. Nothing big, the usual stuff, thought I was God

23

What would have happened if he’d “landed” a few miles out in the ocean without ferries anywhere to help. Again, how did it happen? Miracle.

24

Lindsay Lohan’s so cute in Freaky Friday. Anyone watching it? Side note: Eva Mendes smiled at me last night. Not bragging, just sayin’.

25

Met her at Bungalow 8. Doesn’t really count, I know. Maybe if I talk to her next time. I was too scared. Trop belle pour moi.

He really put that on his Facebook “update” that he was on the same flight last week?

Broccoli is a very tasty vegetable. Doesn’t smell bad. When was the last time you tried it? Same year Annie Hall beat Star Wars and you cried?

But why tell everyone on Facebook? I bet if he’d been on the actual flight he’d be all over the news now, stealing the spotlight from Cap’n Sully, bumming everyone out, ruining everything. Oh wait, that’s what I’d do.

O.K., Eva was smiling in my general direction, but I think it was intended for me. This happened once with an Olsen twin. Got smiled at then second-guessed it for months because there were a lot of people around. Update: David Gergen on CNN says the miracle on the Hudson is a metaphor for Obama’s message, everyone working together or some nonsense. John King and Anderson Cooper and Soledad and him are all trying to out-nonsense each other.

I could use a pair of adult size floaties. Why not?

I might have mentioned the Lohan thing so I could work in the Eva Mendes smile at me to impress you all.

Should I start doing daily Facebook updates? Fear that my balls will fall off once and for all. 

.Is it true that Cap’n Sully won’t do the talk shows, the late-night dopes? How cool is that?

Might have been too harsh on the Facebook update guy who said he was on the flight a week ago. Really no big deal. Should I apologize to him even though he doesn’t know I bad-mouthed him real bad? Fucking Facebook.

35

Not sure that was Eva Mendes who smiled at me. Well whoever she was, she was a real super yummy knockout just like her so it still counts.

When will Hollywood have the balls to do a funny flick about an Al Qaeda–type group who just can’t get it together, Keystone Kops/Abbott & Costello/Three Stooges style? A Dumb & Dumber type comedy yet so devastating it might even inflame that region a tad for a brief spell? How many times did I have to hear that, circa 2003: Oh no, now we’re gonna make ’em mad! We’re makin ’em mad! We made ’em mad! They’re mad at us now! Very simple fact, dopes, is that they’ve hated us since before we were born and guess what, we’re winning and Dubya gets mad credit just like Reagan with the Cold War. Suck it. Bite me.

So I’m starting a new club called Friday Night with George. All my Facebook friends, you guys, and anyone else will meet me at Dusk on 24^th street from 9 p.m. to 11:45 p.m., then at midnight we’ll get into cabs on Seventh Avenue and convoy down to the Patriot on Chambers, congregate upstairs, stay there until 2:45 a.m., and that’s it. You’re free to go to Rose Bar or Beatrice. I’m still banned from Beatrice but I’m working it out with the owner, who says the ban will be lifted if I show up in a full clown suit, clown makeup, clown nose, clown shoes and so on. It looks like I’ll have to stay in the suit all night, not just for one or two drinks which was the original deal. I think this is going to be pretty humiliating. If I do it, I’ll have to make sure I “own” it, and I’m not sure I can pull it off.

Just made a deal with the fiancée: If she stops whistling all the time, I’ll stop with the smelly sounds. She pulled an Irish exit the other night at the University Club. Just up and left. Mighta had something to do with this woman asking if we’d ever had sex, because we have separate bedrooms. And so I said, “Actually, I’ve fucked her many more times than any other woman, including that one right there at the next table.” Shortly after that, fiancée left.

Face it, Robert Downey’s always playing himself and he hasn’t been good since Less Than Zero. Nope, Chaplin sucked. All right, he’s pretty good.

I don’t think Caroline Kennedy should be disqualified because she has a speech impediment or partied too much in the ’80s or whatever. I mean, I say “like” and “you know” all the time. Plus, she grew up around this stuff, it’s in her genes, she’s a Kennedy. Also she’s a woman, better than any old white male. Main thing is she’s a Democrat, her heart is in the right place. Of course we can all agree on that, right? If not, can we agree that Anne Hathaway looks like a rodent in Page Six mag? A mouse with a mouth the size of a giant grouper. 

I don’t know how one enters the young socialite sweepstakes, but I guess if you’ve got a good quality nose, cheekbones, hair, your eyes are blue, and you don’t eat a lot and your daddy pays for your $4,800 a month one-bedroom and you go to parties four nights a week minimum, but don’t overdo it with the white stuff, don’t get a reputation as “crazy” or “pushy” and don’t have much to say, no real character, but you’re “nice,” then you’re on the right track. But if you got, say, a big Aaron Neville mole on your face, then you’re out, even if you can sing.

Guess no one cares about the miracle on the Hudson anymore. It’s over. Now it’s time to focus on the inauguration (that how you spell it? Yeah, got it right) and for everything else to start sucking again.

Actually I don’t know anything about Aaron Neville except that mole.

 I remember the time I was sitting in the living room in East Hampton and the socialite woman staying with us just pulled off her bikini top and there they were—huge and gravity-defying, right in front of me, like 10 feet away, for like 23 seconds. Just stared. Thought she was trying to turn me on so I started hanging out near her room a lot.

Isn’t is great that Cap’n Sully has no interest in going on the Today show to talk to Matt Lauer? I’m hoping he keeps turning down the TV offers, would be the most radical thing anyone’s done since Jesus fed all those people with the loaves.

I once asked an old timer who was coughing on the bench next to me if he had any advice. He snarled, “Find out for yourself!”

She wasn’t trying to turn me on after all, just fixing her top.

ggurley@observer.com

Anyway, I’m putting together my survival kit. Remember when everyone promised themselves they’d pack one after 9/11? And how no one did? Suckers.

So here goes.

Au poivre buffalo burgers, scallion cream cheese, crab cakes, matzo ball soup, creamed spinach, salmon caviar, cheese, pigs in a blanket, beef jerky from the Mast General store in Boone, N.C., 50-year-old Macallan’s single malt whiskey—O.K., some 23-year-old pompous ass with a beard is now thinking, Ha, what a dope, he doesn’t know you’re supposed to call it Macallan. Well, dudes like you are only good for one thing: ruining my drinks. Go back to fuckin’ Wesleyan. Let’s see, where was I? A pound of White Widow marijuana; the whole trick is to catch a slight buzz throughout the day, every few hours, then continue going about your tasks. I pity anyone who doesn’t do this on a regular basis. At the same time, I don’t like advocating marijuana use for anyone but me and am not in favor of softening Rockefeller drug laws—I’d make ’em even tougher for people in Hollywood.

Just looked into purchasing a bong at my local deli. Two prep-school dudes checking them out, too. I asked the very nice Muslim man to show me the bong; the price tag had a 5, a 9, and another 5 on it, so I figured all right, we’re in a depression, bongs are even cheaper than eighth grade. Nope. Guy wanted $59.95. Three of us burst out laughing at him. Then again, beginning to worry that after a month of sparking up every day and no exercise, I’m becoming somewhat lazy.

More for the kit: At least five different kinds of croutons.

CDs: the Band’s Music From Big Pink; Jethro Tull’s Songs from the Wood; Erik Satie’s Oeuvres Pour Piano Volume 3; Barry Manilow Live; Funky Kingston/In the Dark by Toots and the Maytals; Beach Boys’ Endless Summer; the Who’s Tommy; Bob Dylan’s Desire; all Miles Davis; Van Morrison’s Moondance (music freak friend argues he’d rather have Astral Weeks because Moondance is “too polished,” but you know what, he cried during Marley and Me so he’s disqualified); Judith Owen’s Mopping Up Karma (because of karma—I called her bonkers in this newspaper); the greatest hits of Joni Mitchell, Fats Domino, Ricky Nelson, John Denver, Neil Sedaka, George Jones; Are You Shakespearienced? by Trip Shakespeare (Check this OUT: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwlHcFj0W_E); Hong Kong Gooey Volume 7—don’t know what that’s doing here, or the Vanessa Del Rio flick; the Stones’ Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out; Comedy Minus One by Albert Brooks; Pride and Prejudice read by Jenny Agutter; and Steve Martin’s Comedy Is Not Pretty!

Let’s say I’m one of the last who survive, I Am Legend–style, and I appoint me emperor. I’ll ban Brits saying “massive” and “proper” (a proper flat, a proper lorry, etc.). Australian guys will be outlawed. In fact, dudes in general can take a hike.

May or may not pack up my Complete New Yorker with the eight DVDs. The mag irked me last night, Nancy Franklin writing about the Elvis Costello talk show, said she’s “not crazy” about the studio audience: “I noticed only two black faces and no young proto-rockers, just a monotonous sea of well-groomed upper-middle-class white people...” What does she expect? So that bothered me along with all the gratuitous Bush bashing in the magazine. Guess the deal is, if you include a sentence dissing Dubya, everyone winks at you when you walk down the New Yorker hallway, like a secret handshake: Pssst, nice goin’ with the chimp reference in your “pop notes” column or restaurant review, keep fighting the good fight, Obama’s gonna change the world, he’s gonna change it and rearrange it!

I’d bring 12 to 25 songs by Bob Dylan. Not saying which ones, it’s “my” Bob Dylan, not yours, so go away. “Visions of Johanna” is not on my list, if you must know. That’s on yours, though, isn’t it? Yeah. Of course it is. “Isis” is on mine. Had that album when I was 7. I win.

So glad I don’t happen to be, say, playing air drums or whacking it now. Window washer four feet away from me all a sudden.

Also in my kit: Fiber Con, the bulk-forming laxative; monogrammed PJs fiancée got me, and the red cowboy pair with opening in the seat. Comic books: Sgt Fury and his Howling Commandos, Little Lulu, X-Men, Dame Darcy. Anusol. Just wanted to write that. Don’t even know what it is. Funny word, though. Probably has something to do with your ass. No porn. Gonna have a whole posse of exotic girls. Second thought, not worth it. Can already hear them whining and squawking and scratching and giggling and talking about stupid stuff. It’ll just be me, the cat and the fiancée. Lubricated rubbers. Not gonna have much time for foreplay when I’m off the grid.

Books: Modern Times and Intellectuals by Paul Johnson; Peter Pan; My Life by Golda Meir; Sister Wendy’s 1000 Masterpieces; Liberal Fascism; that Robert Mitchum bio; Henry Miller, Balzac, Dickens, Twain, Conrad, Shakespeare, blah, blah, blah; 1000 Places to See Before You Die; Blame It On the Dog: A Modern History of the Fart; Alive; The Mr. and Mrs. Bridge novels; Gulliver’s Travels. I’m cool with small “independent” bookstores going out of business, by the way. Hope the Goliaths crush ’em all.

I’ll bring Sharky, Monkey, Plumpy and Piggy. Leaving Beary and Scruffy behind. Sorry, guys. From the bathtub I’ll take my yellow rubber ducky; my black ninja one; scuba-diving man; Smush Bush; bubble bath. Also avocados; Breathe Rights; Rogaine; Progaine; Selsun Blue; flushable Preparation H moist wipes with aloe; tube socks; milk; ice skates; banjo; singing saw; ranch dressing.

DVDs: Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Brief Encounter, Laura, E.T., 2001 A Space Odyssey, Breaker Morant, Wizard of Oz, A Christmas Carol, L’Avventura, City of Women, The Grateful Dead: Dead Ahead, The Fugitive, Cocaine Cowboys, Alive, Bad News Bears remake, If These Walls Could Talk Part 2, Dumb and Dumber, Stagecoach, Red River, Jeremiah Johnson, Tin Cup, Coffy, American Gigolo, Hot Rod, Helvetica, The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh, Dawn of the Dead, Black Snake Moan, Young Sherlock Holmes, Jesus: The Complete Story, Eddie Murphy Delirious, King Solomon’s Mines. TV shows: Everybody Loves Raymond, I Love Lucy, Leave it to Beaver, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Lucky Louie, Maude, Cheers, The Complete Tonight Show. Speaking of movies, back in 2002 I was talking to these Hollywood peeps, said I’d like to see a movie where the main character’s always pissed off, screaming at people on the street, smacking taxicabs if they got too close, because really, there’s nothing funnier—and I’m pretty sure they ripped me off with that Anger Management flick.

Bringing the Internet but getting rid of AOL once and for all. It’s bad enough to be on Facebook. Guy I last saw in boarding school in 1986 just friended me, wants to have drinks with two other guys I never want to see again. Can’t figure out what percentage of Facebook is catching up with dear old friends/connecting with new acquaintances versus Pure Evil. My conclusion: 25-75. Terminating my account.

Yoplait key lime or banana. Coats your belly better than raw eggs; Farts: A Spotters Guide with battery-powered fart machine; fish oils; Wellness Formula Herbal Resistance drops; tent; tarp; poncho; a mini point laser; rope; a hose; treasure pouch for sentimental items; Mr. Grouchy instant hand warmer; a disguise; sleeping bag with wedge pillow for acid flux; one of those aluminum blankets those dopes wear, looking for attention after they run the N.Y.C. Marathon in six hours; bug repellent; snakebite kit; snowshoes; Chapstick (which doubles as something you can hurl at a zombie’s head—done it before, whipped one at a guy on 57th and Park, scared the hell out of him); a stress-reducing squeeze ball. For the cat: Cat Chow; litter; Friskies Party Mix and Temptations; a good wire and bristle brush; Piggie and Lambie; large and small water bowls; honey-baked ham; Dover sole; catnip; cat dancer; furry blanket; jungle gym.

Also American flag; a penny farthing bike; whips, paddles, riding crops, gags, muzzles, collar with spikes, spreader and truss bars, cock and balls toys, leather hoods, ankle shackles (zero interest in any of this but might be good for trades); Nana by Zola that’s gotta be worth $2,000 if anyone wants to buy it and I’ll throw in an Avedon print of that bald guy covered with bees; 17 refills of Viagra; a Giant Big Wheel™; every issue of Playboy from ’64 (the issue with the Ayn Rand interview) to November ’78 (Monique St. Pierre, 36-26-36), which was the last year before American women became fake; Beano, Gas-X, Tums. I don’t care what my gastroenterologist says, I’m not getting a colonoscopy anytime soon; apparently during the procedure this thing called an intracolonic explosion can occur, where the colonoscope ignites the methane gases in there, and you explode. Which can be fatal.

ggurley@observer.com

“I can tell you one thing,” said Mr. Maccioni. “For me, a world without women would be impossible. But also I’ve never been stupid. I respect myself and I respect my wife and I respect my children. When we were at the other restaurant on 65th Street, we had the most beautiful women in the world. You know what was my satisfaction? I’d say, ‘Yes, you’re attractive, I’m sorry I cannot go with you.’ As a joke, that was for fun. It’s all mental what you do. I knew that I could have done, I know that I could do.”

I could smell the animal on him. I asked my new hero what his favorite sex act was?

“I like all of them,” he said, his leonine head inclining toward me. “I have done it all. I have done it all in the right way and most of all, always with beautiful woman—beginning with my wife.”

“No, no, no,” interrupted Mr. Maccioni’s biographer, Peter Elliot, who was standing nearby. “Ending with your wife.”

It was that kind of night. What was I doing there, anyway? I had, like, five bucks to my name, and here I was, at a fancy restaurant, when, to me, food just means Burrrrp! Pffffft! Plop! Flush! But sex still works when I can get it (twice a month max, thanks to the economy).

Well, I was just doin’ my job. The whiskey was sloshing inside but I was still nervous approaching socialite Debbie Bancroft, whom I’ve always wanted to spoon. I wagered a question: We all know New York men have gone flaccid; how can New York City women get these men back to old-school boning?

“I think if the women were less selfish, and less involved in things they can acquire, they might actually pay more attention to the man they’re with,” she said. “So this may all just jibe beautifully with the recession: No money, no shopping, so look at who you’re with, talk to him.”

What does she like better, food or fucking?

“Can I put a martini first, then food? Then fucking.” She said the word as if it had four syllables; my tape recorder was inches from her lips. I asked what was the best dish she ever had at Le Cirque?

“Foie gras ravioli.”

Favorite sex act?

“Are you serious? Holding hands. Nicole, here’s your wine glass.”

Nicole Miller, the glamorous fashion designer, was before me, looking sultry and in the mood.

“Food or fucking?” I blurted, spilling whiskey on my khakis.

“Oh my gawd,” she said. “I’m happy to have both.”

She talked about the time Mario Maccioni, one of Sirio’s three pretty sons, brought her bread crusts with lard and white truffle shavings—on the house! Zounds!

Her favorite sex act?

“Kissing.”

Blech!

I grabbed another free Johnnie Walker Red. Over by the bar was comic actor Robert Wuhl. Dude’s been married to the same woman for 25 years. His favorite sex act?

“Getting some. Any. I just said I’ve been married for 25 years.”

Over by the buffet was Monica Crowley, the foxy Fox commentator. For the record, I have thought about her sexually.

She likes pasta. Her favorite sexual position? No dice.

During a recession: sex or food?

“Sex, because it doesn’t cost anything most of the time,” she said.

Eeegads! I did not want to think about this nice girl paying for a bone dance. So I moved on: What did she make of the fact that New York men are just whacking it to Internet porn?

“I think that holds true as long as the Internet porn is free and it’s not a pay site,” said Ms. Crowley. How can New York women get these limp cheapskates boning again?

“A visit to La Perla to replenish that top drawer,” she said. “It’s not socks, George.”

Favorite sex act?

“A great, passionate kiss.”

While in the missionary position?

“A great passionate kiss on the mouth—where the kiss moves to the back of the neck.”

Ms. Crowley caught me checking out her outfit: Ralph Lauren vintage silk wrap, Armani pants and Jimmy Choo black leather boots.

“And La Perla underneath, from the top drawer,” she purred.

Holy moly!

I was saved by Vanity Fair writer George Wayne.

“Fucking always works, honey,” he told me. He was wearing Oliver Peoples shades, Calvin Klein bespoke suit and Valentino pumps. He smelled like a saddle.  How can women get N.Y.C. men boning again?

“Put a half a Viagra in the mojito. Get a push-up bra, a nice pair of hot pants and no underwear.”

Did he think Internet porn was ruining sex lives?

“I just discovered Internet porn and I didn’t know what I was missing.  Before I go to bed, I have a good wank.”

Mauro Maccioni, another of Sirio’s strapping sons, told me his favorite food at Le Cirque was: His wife! And then the crème brûlée. He said he’d had sex in the private room upstairs at one of the family’s other restaurants—Le Cirque 2000. His favorite sex act is smearing crème brûlée over his testicles and then presenting them to his wife.

I nabbed Mr. Elliot, Sirio’s biographer, and asked him if there’s much boom-boom in his biography of the great man,

“The woman in question, his wife, is right there,” he said, swiveling his eyes. “There were lots of allusions in my book to the beautiful women who love Sirio and Sirio loves—but he always goes home. Because you know what, she’d fricking kill you with a pan. If Egidiana ever thought that her husband was ever actually really fucking around on her, she has a frying pan like this.”

KA-BON-N-N-N-N-GGGGG!

Everywhere I looked were yummy MILF-y women but one really stood out with her mink hat and sable coat. She was Sonja Morgan, a film producer whose 8-year-old daughter’s great-great-great-grandfather was J. P. Morgan. Ms. Morgan said she’s a good friend of Sirio’s. (“He always guests me, I never pay.”)  I asked her her favorite sex act.

“Kissing.”

Oh man!

I asked her how to get New York’s limp men to step up.

“Do not mention the stock market, do not mention shopping and don’t wear underwear.”

I asked if kissing really was the summit.

“Let’s just put it this way,” she said, sweeping up her fur coat and turning around. “I have the most amazing ass.”

Artist Brian Farrell was by the buffet. With his shaved head he resembled actor Billy Zane but much better-looking. Wildest sex he’s had this year?

“Three girls,” he said. “I wasn’t involved, but watching. It was a friend’s birthday party. By 12:30 a.m. I was being dragged out the door by three women, thrown into a cab. ‘You’re going to watch us all fuck each other.’ They wanted me to sit in a chair. Wasn’t allowed to touch ’em. One was 19, she’s a model. The other was 22, a model—so to speak—and the other was in her early 40’s, an Upper East Side socialite. Socialites are the worst. They’re dirty. They love it. They get in there.”

He said he also loves the monkfish at Le Cirque.

ggurley@observer.com